I like the idea of the Surface Book but the cost is far too high to even consider particularly when it's not repairable or upgradeable.

I have bought what is pretty much Dell's version which is the Latitude 13 7350, it has a detachable 13in which attaches to a more conventional hinged laptop base. The tablet has only a headphone port and charger port while the base has two USB ports, an SD card reader and a mini displayport. It uses a Core-m processor rather than a ULV processor, its screen is 1080p and there's no discrete GPU or pen digitiser. It looked pretty crap on paper but I couldn't resist the whiff of a bargain, it was £400 with 8GB ram, 256GB SSD and an LTE card. It's not repairable or upgradeable either but I can live with that for the much lower cost I paid for it.

I've been using it more than any other PC at the moment and like it more than I thought, it has a super keyboard, the Core-m processor is entirely passively cooled and because there's nothing in the base it doesn't heat up at all nor any vents to block. Batterylife is decent particularly across the two batteries. On the downside similar to the Surface Book there's a lack of ports on the tablet part and it's weighted backwards as well so can easily tilt back if you're not careful. The hinge is restrictive though even compared to a normal laptop hinge never mind the fancier one on the Surface Book. I prefer the 1080p screen so I can run everything without scaling which was very inconsistent on the 3200x1800 screen on the XPS 15, it's a pretty screen anyway.

They've released a newer version (the XPS 12 and a Latitude version) which appears to sort some of the issues as it has two USB-C ports and an SD card reader on the tablet part but they take as many steps back, the hinge is fixed, there's no battery in the base and there's no full size USB ports on the base either.

John

Used correctly terrain is a second weapon in your arsenal, equal to your Titan itself. Make the battlefield work for you, or you will find it working for your opponent.

I've been very pleased with the Core-m so far, I have a Latitude 12 7240 which is a similar machine but it's a conventional laptop - 12in screen, i5 ULV processor, 8GB ram and 256GB SSD. It runs quite hot and the fan noise is noticeable so I wish it used the Core-m platform as well as I don't see much loss in performance over the ULV processor, I did try video editing/rendering on this machine and it was hilariously slow as I forget just how fast the desktop is which itself takes a fair bit of time to chew through video.

John

Used correctly terrain is a second weapon in your arsenal, equal to your Titan itself. Make the battlefield work for you, or you will find it working for your opponent.

Seems to be a convoluted way to do it. Release an ARM tablet with a detachable keyboard, then an Intel tablet, dump the ARM tablet, release a tablet with a detachable base that looks like a laptop, release a computer, release a laptop that looks like the tablet with the detachable keyboard! Starting at a mere £1000... That makes it cheap compared to the Surface Book, at least! (MS page for prices n specs)

I like that they have made the keyboard look like the signature one from the SP4. But you can only get the different colours in the US and only on the i5 256GB model atm (which, tbf, is probably the one to go for).

Tappy, you forgot the part where they made the new laptop that looks like the tablet 2 in 1 behave like the old ARM tablets - the specs page only specifies these machines as available with Windows 10 S which is similar to RT in that apps can only be installed from the Store. They're apparently going for the Chromebook market although this machine is obviously priced way higher and it seems odd to limit it to a laptop design, the most useful aspect of Windows store apps for me is that they work far better as touch screen apps than the webpages normally do.

John

Used correctly terrain is a second weapon in your arsenal, equal to your Titan itself. Make the battlefield work for you, or you will find it working for your opponent.

Johnmcl7 wrote:Source of the post Tappy, you forgot the part where they made the new laptop that looks like the tablet 2 in 1 behave like the old ARM tablets(...)

True! I think I forgot about it because the Windows 10 S thing is only a factor from 2018 for the Surface Laptop. It's all free upgrades before then. And surely, with an i5/i7 processor, no private user would stick to Windows 10 S?! Right?!

I think the 10 S is mostly aimed for the plethora of 64GB models that were announced from their hardware partners. They will likely be the ones that schools will prefer to use - since I think the most expensive one is $300.

It looks like you can convert Windows 10 S to Windows Pro, apparently they're hoping people will like S and stick with it though. Apparently though you can't have a different default browser apart from Edge (even though you can install other browsers) and you can't change the default search engine from Bing.

John

Used correctly terrain is a second weapon in your arsenal, equal to your Titan itself. Make the battlefield work for you, or you will find it working for your opponent.

Perhaps you can't see the image in my post from 4/5/17?! That might explain a lot! I would post it again, but that obviously wouldn't solve anything if there's an issue!

Well, it lists a number of devices with Chromebook specs running Windows 10 S. The prices, or at least those listed, range from $189 to $299. Assume they will translate like for like in GBP. Those are the devices going for the Chromebook market. Yeah, obviously the i5/i7, ultra thin, highly stylized laptop with at least 128GB of storage is not a direct Chromebook competitor! It's like the original Surface. A flag ship to encourage other manufacturers to make their own. It's OS is a Chromebook competitor though. Really can't see why any private user would not switch to Pro on the Surface Laptop though given its specs.

I did look at your picture Tappy and found it very useful as I was a bit confused with the articles on the new laptop and Windows 10 S which to me weren't clear that while the new laptop was effectively the flagship for 10S, there would be much cheaper models running this OS as Chromebook rivals. I can obviously see why Microsoft want to go this approach as it's similar to what IOS and Android are doing which gives them much more control over the platform but I can't really see much incentive for either consumers or businesses as one of the biggest advantages Microsoft have with Windows is the ability to run such a vast array of different software through a simple install which is what this new version of Windows loses.

John

Used correctly terrain is a second weapon in your arsenal, equal to your Titan itself. Make the battlefield work for you, or you will find it working for your opponent.